Most breweries presently supply beer to commercial establishments, like restaurants and bars, in stainless steel kegs. In the United States a full keg is a 15.5 gallon U.S. gallon barrel, sometimes referred to as a half-barrel. In European countries the keg most comparable to the US full keg is a keg having a size of 50 liters (13.21 gal). Normally the keg will have long dispenser-like tube extending from the top of the keg to just above the keg's inside bottom surface. In addition, a pressurizing valve is typically connected to the top of the keg and dispenser tube and is used with a tap valve to pressurize the beer within the keg, causing the beer to flow from the bottom of the keg and up through the dispenser tube and tap, and into a serving container.
Stainless steel beer kegs are expensive to manufacture and are intended to be returned by the commercial establishment to the brewery for cleaning and refilling. Repeatedly cleaning the stainless steel kegs is particularly expensive due to the substantial amounts of water that must be used and sent to a treatment facility. An additional expense arises from that fact that after the same stainless steel keg has been returned to the brewery about 20 times, the keg must be reworked to remove dents that would otherwise reduce the internal volume to an unacceptable degree. Another well recognized expense to the brewery industry is that a large percentage of stainless steel kegs are never returned due to theft, causing the brewery to incur substantial economic loses. Several attempts have been made to reduce these expenses by producing relatively inexpensive plastic and/or composite beer kegs that are not returned to the brewery, but are either disposable or can be sent to a plastic recycling facility for grinding into raw material for use in the production of other plastic articles. (See for example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,666,358). In this regard, although disposable kegs certainly eliminate the economic costs associate with the theft of stainless steel kegs as well as the cost of cleaning the kegs, disposable kegs have other costs associated with having to dispose of the kegs and the contamination of the environment, which are costs that are not associated with the use of stainless steel kegs. Further, even if the kegs are sent to a plastic recycling facility, there are the considerable costs associated with collecting, sorting, cleaning and grinding the kegs into a reusable form that can then be used to manufacture other plastic products.
Accordingly, what is needed is a reusable beer keg that is substantially less expensive to manufacture than a stainless steel keg but can be returned and refilled by the brewer just like a stainless steel keg but, unlike a stainless steel keg, does not need to be cleaned. In addition, the reusable beer keg should be produced in a manner that would make it less desirable to persons who might be inclined to steal it. As will be apparent from the description that follows, the reusable beer keg of the present invention satisfies these needs and provides other unique and desirable features.